


Straight to Voicemail

by cabbagetop



Series: Overnight Proofing [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), DCU, Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: (characters updated as I get along), But he's trying, Gen, Good Older Sibling Jason Todd, PLEASE DO NOT RE-POST or provide a link to this fic outside AO3 without telling me first, Tim Drake Being a Little Shit, Tim's on a roll and Jason's just clingin' unwillingly along for the ride, for a given value of..., with a lot of misdirected hero-worship and an overactive overcaffeinated brain, young Tim who is not suave and cool quite yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23019727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cabbagetop/pseuds/cabbagetop
Summary: “Red Hood.  I need you to incapacitate Timothy Drake-Wayne.”“Aw, man,” Jason sighs, shouldering through the old wooden doors and out into the street with his books under his arm.  “You and half the northern hemisphere.  What’d he do this time?”Jason's phone is blowing up about one Timothy Drake-Wayne (who is Jason's responsibility since when, exactly?).  Jason comfort-eats.  Jason suffers long.  Jason reluctantly tries to keep this Raphus cucullatus of a human being alive, and maybe finds himself sidling back into the family while he's at it.
Relationships: Tim Drake & Jason Todd, Tim Drake & Kon-El | Conner Kent, implied Tim Drake & Midnighter in a sapioplatonic way if that's a thing
Series: Overnight Proofing [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1722916
Comments: 193
Kudos: 1006





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In my mind it’s vaguely a sequel to the last Jason&Tim thing I posted, “Looking Up,” but since there’s no reference as yet to the events in that fic, I’m not putting it as a series. If you don’t want to go read that one, just assume that Jason’s found a cranky half-truce with the Bats, and Tim thinks he’s cool beans.

“ _Jason_.”

Jason pauses, one step inside the door of his apartment, leather jacket half shrugged off, phone tucked between his cheek and armor-plated shoulder. “…You’re not the pizza joint. I definitely called a pizza joint, not a latter-day Zeno of Citium with permanent jock itch because he never takes off his furry suit.” He hears the faintest hint of a grunt on the other end of the line, the most protest Bruce will usually allow himself in the face of purely personal insults, and Jason continues ruthlessly. “You know how I know I called the pizza joint, and not you? Because Porthos’ Pizza is in my speed dial, and you’re _not._ ”

There’s a moment of silence, and Jason lets himself relish in the burn as he shakes off his jacket and boots and heads through the apartment. Serves the asshole right for hacking his phone, anyway.

Bruce clears his throat. “ _Jason,”_ he growls, all Bat-voice night rasp, as if Jason hadn’t spoken at all. “ _You need to stop smoking.”_

Well, that sure flipped the script. Jason stares out his little kitchen windows through the bars of the grimy fire escape. “Huh?”

“ _I need you to stop smoking. At once. I realize this may be difficult for you, and Alfred is fully prepared to supply you with whatever prescriptions, patches, or-_ “

“Hold up, hold up, woah now.” Jason claps a hand over his eyes in exasperation. “I’m not quittin’ the smokes, old man. I didn’t quit when I lived under your roof, and I sure as hell ain’t doin’ anythin’ you say now just ‘cause you say it. In fact-“ and he holds out the phone, peeks at it between his fingers with a sense of dazed marvel- “why am I even talking to you? I’m hanging up.”

_“Jason, wait.”_

And my, my, my. Bruce doesn’t raise his voice, he doesn’t sound desperate- those would be actual, literal, world-ending things- but he sure as heck sounds hasty, to somebody who knows him well. And Jason knows him better than he’d like. He frowns, suddenly suspicious. “What’s goin’ on?”

Bruce sighs. Actually heaves an audible gust of air. Jason rocks on his foundations. “ _It’s Tim._ ”

“What’d you do to him?”

“ _I didn’t do- he’s started smoking cigarettes._ ”

Jason scoffs. “That goody two-shoes? I don’t believe it.”

“ _I wish your picture of him were even half-way close to the truth,_ ” Bruce grumbles, and Jason can’t help a huff of a laugh at the realization that in this moment, Bruce sounds like every exasperated dad, everywhere. “ _I was contacted early this evening by one of his former teachers, who wanted an explanation for the sight of my underage ward skateboarding through metropolitan Gotham, in the dark, with an appallingly large coffee in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other._ ”

“Wow, Bruce,” Jason drawls. He’s not even bothering to hold back his snickers. The schadenfreude is sweet. “You sure fucked this one up fast. Didn’t he used to be, like, all bow ties and Model UN?”

“ _Tim wasn’t in the Model UN. His school attendance record was abysmal, they’d never have let him in. Jason-_ “

But Jason’s frowning. He’s given up on ordering pizza, and the surprise of dealing with Bruce has woken him up enough that he’s willing to wash a dish or two after all tonight. This morning. Whatever. He pulls out a sauté pan and starts it heating on the stove. “Hold up. I thought this kid was supposed to be whip smart?”

“ _He is. Just like you,_ ” Bruce says casually, like that’s the kind of thing they just say, and Jason nearly drops the eggs he’s pulling from the fridge. “ _But unlike you, he got bored in school, and because he knew he could stimulate his mind better on his own, it seemed illogical to him to be forced into classes below his level of comprehension, or outside his areas of interest._ ”

Jason grins as he cracks eggs into hot oil, dropping the shells into the compost bin under the sink. Bruce said those words like a quotation, and he can just picture his itty bitty replacement pursing his little mouth and piping up with that kinda horseshit. All reasonable and calm, and logic-ing circles around poor Bruce.

Hell, he could actually learn to like this kid. He says as much.

“ _You know_ ,” Bruce snaps, and he sounds so utterly done. Jason’s getting almost giddy. His replacement is turning Bruce into an actual Done Dad, and it is so great. “ _I called you to take some responsibility here. His teacher may yet call Child Services if she decides she wasn’t satisfied with our conversation, and seeing as it’s significantly your culpability-“_

“ _My_ culpability,” Jason squawks, and squeezes way too much harissa over the eggs frying in his pan. “How do I have anything to do with anything? I don’t go anywhere near you guys!”

“ _He-“_ Bruce stops. Breathes. Jason can so vividly picture him sitting at his office desk in the dark, rubbing a knuckle between his eyes. “ _He_ admires _you, Jason. He’s mimicking you._ ”

And Jason just stares at his eggs, browning now around the edges in a way they shouldn’t be, but he can’t think to do anything about it.

“ _You hang around certain parts of Gotham off-duty, so he wants to go there. You smoke cigarettes. Last month he tried very hard to cultivate an appreciation for Jane Austen, but decided that knowing several_ Jedi Apprentice _novels by heart makes him literary enough.”_

“I don’t like him anymore,” Jason announces, and finally slides his eggs off onto a plate. He dumps on a few scoops of the cannellini beans that hadn’t gone into last night’s soup, and a huge pile of yogurt, and splashes salsa verde over the whole thing. “What a fuckin’ twerp. So I’m guessin’ you think if I go around all reformed and clean-livin’, the kid is gonna give it all up, too?”

“ _That was more or less the idea._ ”

“Yeah,” Jason says, settling on his sofa with his dinner. Breakfast. Whatever. “Or- and here’s one I know you never would’a thought of- you could maybe just sit him down and tell him to knock that shit off?”

“ _I didn’t think I’d waste either of our time, considering the success rate I had following similar conversations with you. You are still smoking, after all. Which is rather the point._ ”

“Yeah, but it ain’t like I’m your kid now.”

There’s a moment of silence so still that Jason half wonders if Bruce had muted the line. “ _Regardless of what you may like to believe,_ ” Bruce says, quiet and stiff, “ _adoption papers do not cancel out, or revert, or suddenly disappear in the event of a person’s death. Or resurrection, however that may come to be. Tim, however, is not now, and unfortunately never more than nominally has been, my son, and his biological parents apparently left the study of most facts of life to his own research, which has significantly colored his impressions._ ”

Well, that’s all just uncalled for. Jason throws down his fork and slumps back into the sofa. “You’re ruining my dinner,” he complains. “I didn’t ask for any emotional engendering or confluence, what’d I do to deserve this? I didn’t even get to shoot anybody tonight.”

Bruce sighs again. Two in one night, Jason marvels. Gotta be some kinda record. Dickie-bird didn’t even get that kind of reaction out of him when he decided he was going to practice for a place on the Olympic diving team from the roof of the house. “ _If you could refrain from shooting anyone in his presence until we straighten this out, it would be preferable,”_ he says. “ _His hero-worship is…unrealistic. He currently has a minor concussion from attempting a front handspring-headbutt combo he saw you perform last week._ ”

Jason’s nonplussed. “I wear a helmet. I mean, yeah, that one was totally badass, but…with a helmet. Hey, is he even tall enough to headbutt people?”

“ _He jumped. I assume you don’t get concussions. Alfred approves the helmet wholeheartedly._ ”

“I’m glad somebody does. Roy called it- no, never mind. Look, why don’t you just show him one’a those stupid grade school these-are-your-lungs-on-smokes slideshows?”

“ _I did. He gave me his exact statistical likelihood of lung cancer, based on gender, ethnic background, domicile, contributing health factors, and socioeconomic status._ ”

“What a little freak.”

“ _Jason, I have just had a varied supply of nicotine patches and gum sent to your address. If you will not stop smoking, I ask that you keep them available to use when in sight of Tim so that you can at least appear to have done so._ ”

Jason sits up straight, all humor gone, his face set and his shoulders tense. His free hand is twitching towards the handgun stashed under his sofa. “And just what address did you use, huh?”

“ _…Enjoy your eggs._ ”

Bruce hangs up before Jason can really get into the flow of his cursing.


	2. Chapter 2

“ _Jaaay!”_ a voice howls when he answers his phone one morning, and this is really getting old.

“You’re not Captain Marvel,” Jason says flatly.

 _“I spoofed his number,”_ Tim sniffles. “ _Everybody always answers for him.”_

“Well, yeah, unless you’re an actual monster with no feelings. What do you want?”

“ _Jaaaay,”_ Tim moans again, and Jason would very much like to know when they became on speaking terms, let alone nickname terms. “ _The Man is try’na take me down.”_

“I- what.” Jason puts his phone on speaker so that he can sit forward on the sofa and drop his head in his hands. This is no longer a conversation he can have without physical support.

“ _He rejected my manifesto!”_

“Who did what to your what?”

“ _Bruce rejected my manifesto. I wrote a manifesto for the East Side. I’m claiming the East Side.”_

“You…why.”

“ _Because,”_ says Tim, and Jason immediately regrets asking. He can just _hear_ the kid drawing himself up as he takes a big breath; he’s probably been waiting for somebody to ask him this question for days. “ _It is conveniently equidistant to the Narrows, the docks, and the Diamond District. It is within direct and easy routes, by ground and air, to my places of residence. It borders Little Italy, and all the pizzerias therein, so Alfred can stop stuffing trail mix into my sterile materials collection baggies. It-_ “

“Tim, Tim,” Jason breaks in. He even uses the little shit’s _name_ , he’s so desperate for the flow of words to stop. “Why do you want to claim _any_ district?”

Tim’s quiet for a long moment. “ _You have Crime Alley,_ ” he says sullenly.

Well…shit.

“I’m a bad guy, though?” Jason tries. “I took over Crime Alley like a dictator. You don’t wanna be a dictator, do ya? You’re still a bird.”

“ _I could be a dictator,_ ” Tim says brightly, and Jason thunks his forehead on the coffee table. Bruce is gonna kill him. “ _I mean, I don’t know if I’ll do the heads in the duffle bag thing, because I don’t think I have the upper body musculature for that kind of machete work-_ “

“Oh my god, please stop.” Jason hauls up to his feet and stomps to the kitchen, scooping up his phone as he goes and scrubbing his free hand through his messy hair. “I can’t do this without fried food, Jesus Christ.”

“ _-but I think I could be quite a good_ benevolent _dictator, though. Like. I think I could probably be Handsome Jack from the Overwatch games when I grow up. You know, if he didn’t use any guns or kill people. And I’d be smarter so I wouldn’t have to wear a mask or get killed. And I’d be nice and benevolent so all my minions would like me. But other than that I could be a cool dictator like him who invents things all the time. What kind of fried food are you making?”_

“Cannoli.” Jason takes out flour and oil, cheese and chocolate.

“ _Isn’t that pasta?”_

“That’s cannelloni, you twerp. Cannoli are fried shells stuffed with sweetened soft cheese.”

“… _Can I come over?”_

“You think I’m tellin’ you where I live just because you want some junk food fix? Fuck off. Go to Little Italy and buy your own damn cannoli.”

 _“Oh!”_ Tim says, an audible spark of an idea, and Jason shakes his head in despair at himself as he whisks sugar and flour in a bowl. “ _If I take over Little Italy too, I bet I can set up a protection racket at a bakery and demand cannoli as payment. Jason, how do I set up a protection racket?_ ”

Jason smacks a cold block of butter on the counter. He breathes out through his nose, long and slow, then determinedly reduces the butter to smithereens in the bowl with his fingertips. “Tim. Kid. Listen to me, okay?”

_“Okay! Hang on, let me open a new Word document.”_

“You won’t need it, this is very simple. You can’t take over the East Side.”

“ _I’m pretty sure I can,_ ” Tim says matter-of-factly, and the sad thing is that Jason wouldn’t bet single fuckin’ dime against him, so long as he’s got that self confidence in his voice. And the _really_ sad thing is that somehow, somewhy, this little idiot’s decided that Jason’s word is worth more than his own damn planet-sized brain.

“No, you can’t,” Jason says firmly, pouring a splash of cheap vodka into his bowl and kneading it in with an egg yolk. He’d never be so masochistic as to drink this paint-stripping homegrown shit, but it’s as good as anything for pastry dough. “And ya know why? Because you forgot one thing.”

“ _What?”_

“Selina lives in the East Side. Now, I don’t know what went on in your manifesto, but do ya really think she’d take a dictator in her district lying down?”

“… _Selina likes me, though,”_ Tim says cautiously, clearly sensing the danger of Jason’s argument and trying to feel his way around it. “ _She tried to kidnap me once.”_

“She- Jesus Christ, kid, you need better adults in your life.” Jason rolls his eyes as he dumps his tub of ricotta into a clean bowl. “Kidnapping is _not_ how people show they care.”

“ _She thought she_ was _being a good adult,_ ” Tim insists. “ _I saw her a lot back when- you know, back when I took pictures. Of you. And Dick. Um. Are you beating somebody up?”_

“Only some dairy products.” And it’s true, he’s maybe beating the double cream harder than necessary. The fact that he’s doing it by hand rather than with the electric beaters says enough. But he fuckin’ hates thinking about all that, and he doesn’t want to break down why, because that just makes him more mad. Remembering himself in the Robin cape? Angry. The image of teenier, tinier Tim bouncing around the rooftops of the Narrows taking photos without Bruce, Dick, or Jason being any the wiser, running into any rogue around? Angry. Tim’s shithead so-called parents who ignored him so much that he was able to get out there in the first place? Really fuckin’ angry. Jason would’a killed for a house like Tim’s growing up, and Tim probably nearly got killed countless times because his mom didn’t even pay him half as much attention as Catherine Todd ever did. People don’t appreciate what they got.

“ _Oh. For the cannoli?_ ”

“Yep.” He scoops the whipped cream into his sugar-sweetened ricotta and folds them together with a light touch, adding some flair and flicks and height to his strokes just because he can and there’s nobody watching.

_“Selina thought I was a street kid working as an informer and tried to pick me up a couple times. And then she tried to give me a kitten to take home but I couldn’t because I wasn’t allowed to have pets. Do you think if I opened a new cat shelter and prioritized funding to the SPCA and free mobile spay/neuter clinics she’d go along with my manifesto?”_

The silliness of his actions is calming him down, so Jason lets himself get a little bit theatrical as he sets a sauce pan full of oil on to heat and grates the zest of an orange into the cannoli filling. He tosses in a pinch of cardamom with all the drama of a prima donna chef. “I think she’s a true born anarchist and you’re gonna have to start over somewhere else. Or just not. You know what else I got that you don’t, besides a territory?”

“ _What_?”

“So many things, Replacement,” Jason says, voice hard. He’s trying to make a point. One that will hopefully get Bruce off his back and out of his phone calls. “How about the ability to feed myself? Friends who aren’t in the nightlife? A habit of sleeping at least five hours every night?” He puts his floury hands on his hips and narrows his eyes at the phone. “A GED?”

“ _Awwwwww,”_ Tim moans, drawing it out like the whiny teenager he is. “ _Diplomas, certifications, and standardized exams in the United States are just a fundamentally irrational construct of the social desire for conformability in achievements arising from Scandinavian—_ "

“I don’t give a damn,” Jason cuts him off, and slaps his pastry dough down on the counter to roll out, but he’s hiding a grin out of his voice. Man, this kid must be something else to live with. He’d actually really love to see him go toe to toe with Bruce. “Arbitrary social construct or not, it’s an accepted necessity of modern society, and I got one. And you don’t. And nobody wants an uneducated dictator.”

“ _But-“_

“And you and I might know you’re a smarty pants, but how are your minions supposed to know that?” Jason points out reasonably, rolling the dough thin with the straight-sided vodka bottle. “They only know what’s on the resume. And you got nada.”

“ _But…I wouldn’t give them a resume,”_ Tim says doubtfully. “ _Dictators don’t need resumes.”_

“Says who?” Jason demands, and flips the dough a quarter turn. “Which one of us is the actual dictator here? I thought you were askin’ me for advice a minute ago, and now you’re tellin’ me I don’t know how this goes? Manifesto’s stage three, kid. You jumped ahead of the game. You need a regular cover letter and CV to hand around if you wanna build up a minion base, you know, gotta let them come to you. _Then_ you pick your territory, _then_ comes the essay writing.” His oil is perfectly hot and his pastry now a perfectly even half centimeter, so he hunts up an unchipped glass to cut the circles. 

“ _But…._ ” Tim trails off, sounding wary and uncertain, like he _knows_ this conversation’s gone all awry but he’s either not confident enough to contradict Jason, of all people, or he’s just plain not sure of his argument because this is _Gotham_ and shit gets weird. It vaguely occurs to Jason that he’s just playing, now, acting like they’re friends- _or brothers_ , a tiny voice in his head whispers- and he could have hung up a long time ago. He could have hung up the minute he realized it was Tim just calling to bullshit, not Captain Marvel like his caller ID claimed, or a bat in some kind of trouble.

But, just like with Bruce the other night, he’s still on the line.

“ _I’ve never written a resume,_ ” Tim says.

“Neither have I,” Jason tells him honestly. “I bet Bruce hasn’t, either. Dickhead probably did for his cop badge, you could ask him for help.” Now, what is he going to use for cannoli molds? He doesn’t own any real ones; specialist baking shit like that’s expensive. No way is he layin’ down an Audi tire’s worth of cash for some stupid little metal tubes.

“ _He’d ask what I wanted a resume for._ ”

“True.” Metal tubes…he _did_ still have an empty warhead for his mark-II Anza lying around, right? Not like he’s gonna need a vintage MANPAD any time soon….

 _“I guess if you really think I need one, the library runs a- oh my_ GOD, _what are you_ DOING _?”_

Jason’s living room window flies open and a body tumbles in with a crash.

Jason stares.

Tim stares back, managing to both crumple and sprawl across the floor in a twisted heap, one hand clutching a cell phone, one untied sneaker caught outside the windowsill.

“Hi,” Tim says. “Um. I saw you getting a missile.”

Jason crosses his arms and drums his fingers on his ribs. “You know,” he says, and surprises himself at how evenly his voice comes out. “I am really fuckin’ sick of you bats stalkin’ me.”

Tim, somehow, sinks further into the floor, a dejected puddle of shame. “I just wanted some cannoli,” he mumbles.

Jason throws up his hands in exasperation. “Don’t touch anything,” he snaps. “The oil’s hot. I don’t trust you. Stay on-“ and he draws an invisible line with his toe from one side of the kitchen to the other, on the very outside, following the pattern of the linoleum- “ _that_ side, and don’t touch anything out there, either.”

Tim hops up to his feet and immediately bounds into the kitchen, right over the line, crowding up behind Jason’s shoulder. Jason closes his eyes and prays for strength. “Are you going to put chocolate in it?”

“No.”

“Then what’s the chocolate for?”

“It gets drizzled over the top.”

“Oh. I bet that’ll look cool. You looked really cool when you were mixing it all up. Like a rat from _Ratatouille._ Can there be chocolate in some of them, though? Chocolate and orange go together, right? I saw it in a biscotti once at the coffee shop I go to. But I didn’t buy one because I only had enough cash for a quad ristretto and Alfred had Babs set him up a program to alert him every time I use my credit card at a coffee shop.”

Jason glares over his shoulder. Tim’s all perkiness and round blue eyes, utterly unconcerned.

“I like chocolate,” the kid says.

Jason hangs his head, and picks up the chocolate.

Jason kicks the kid out in the afternoon. He’s a busy guy, after all. Shit to do. It ain’t easy keepin’ hold on a dictatorship like Crime Alley, he tells Tim. Takes up all’a your free time; nothin’ left over for video games, can’t let anybody see you kickin’ back with your guard down at that new Star Wars movie. But he sends the kid along with a box of the leftover cannoli for Alfred, and strict instructions to kick the ass of anybody else who tries to touch one.

The kid sets his jaw and nods sharply, swearing he won’t let Jason down.

Heh. He could learn to like this whole schtick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo, what watch list have I landed myself on for all my research trying to find exactly what ammunition can best be repurposed as cannoli molds? *facepalm*


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone pointed out, quite correctly, that Handsome Jack isn’t actually a dictator. I should explain: I headcanon that Tim secretly really likes the idea of being a genius mad scientist who has his own space station and bounds around the galaxy going adventuring like Indiana Jones. Minus the guns and killing, duh. But nobody would ever dare mess with his shit again. Everything would be incredibly productive and efficient because obviously he knows best. People across the universe would be fawning over his amazing exploits and inventions. He’d have a huge comfy desk chair where he would sit and wave a dismissive hand, staring negligently off into the distance of outer space, when adults like Bruce try to videocall him and make silly demands. He would have 100% control over his station cafeteria, so if he wants to eat cheese puffs and pizza rolls every day for the rest of his life, nobody can say a damn thing about it. And of course he’d build real Loader Bots and a Wall-E just for kicks. That's basically his current vision of dictatorship.

When Jason’s phone rings out in the quiet of the Bowery public library, getting him a handful of nasty looks that make him hunker down like a school kid, there’s no hacking or pretense. Lex Luthor isn’t a man who bothers with that shit.

“ _I’m hiring your services. All the Outlaws, if necessary. Price is no object.”_

Jason nearly stumbles over his own feet as he hurriedly runs his stack of books through the self-checkout machine so he can take this conversation outside. “Are you sure you got the right number?”

_“Extremely sure. You are particularly well-suited for the job, after all.”_

“Which is…?” Hey, money’s money, after all. And Lex Luthor’s money is a hell of a lot better off getting dropped through the window of a Crime Alley food bank than languishing in a Cayman Islands bank account.

_“I need you to incapacitate Timothy Drake-Wayne.”_

“Aw, man,” Jason sighs, shouldering through the old wooden doors and out into the street with his books under his arm. “You and half the northern hemisphere. What’d he do this time?”

“ _I_ _s that information relevant to your work?”_ Luthor asks, and uh oh. Testy evil billionaire alert.

“I mean, you never know,” Jason tells him, figuring he should be a real professional about this so long as real dollars are on the line. He eyes both ends of the street. It’s mid-afternoon, and he has new books; he might as well head to the little halal grocer around the block for some fresh tea. “If he fucked up your servers? We can use that to track him. If he drew faces all over the windows of your office and stole your interns? We don’t need to track him anywhere. If he sent a calumnious op-ed about you to all the major newspapers in Wakanda? You’re shit outta luck, for some reason they think he’s cute there. If he bankrupted you overnight and sent all the cash to an Asian palm civet rescue and rehabilitation organization on Kalimantan? We’re gonna need a jet to Kalimantan, and probably a signed blank check for a new rescue center if you want to get any funds back.”

Luthor is quiet for a moment, long enough for Jason to duck in the narrow door of the grocer and fill his lungs with the richly mingling scents of parsley, mint, sesame, and rose water. “ _I suppose it would be to the peril of my own mental health if I were to inquire if these wonderfully specific examples are previous incidents, or predicted future actions?”_ he finally asks, sounding resigned, but Jason can hear a trace of amusement buried in there, too. Tim seems to have that effect on a lot of people. Even the Riddler seems to just be playing with him half the time these days.

“It would,” Jason says simply. Let the kid get a reputation to terrorize the rogues a little bit. The more time that guys like Luthor and Ra’s spend looking over their shoulders for a brat on a caffeine binge, the less time they have to be a pain in Jason’s ass. Ahhh, there’s the good stuff. Bulk bins of all sizes line sections of the crammed walls, everything from almond flour to za’atar, and there are dozens of things that Jason longs to scoop up- when was the last time he made wat and injera?- and dozens more he doesn’t recognize at all, and wants to take home just to try out. But he makes a beeline for the teas.

“ _Regardless. Name your fee. I don’t expect Mr. Drake to be permanently…removed, of course. Merely set out of the way for a time. Notably,_ without _access to telephonic, digital, or other communications devices of any kind.”_

Jason frowns over the cardamom tea he’s scooping into a thin paper bag. This is starting to sound nastily familiar. He folds down the top of the bag and seals it with a piece of tape from the battered dispenser on the wall between two bins. Then he sighs, pinches his nose, and shakes his head. “Aw, shit. This is about the East Side.”

“ _It might be,”_ Luthor says, and that hint of amusement is growing. Well, at least the guy has a sense of humor about the whole thing. “ _I’m aware that I’m missing some vital information, and I must confess some curiosity as to the nature of Mr. Drake’s activities- I did initially try to transfer to him to my Human Resources department when he requested a peer review of his cover letter and resume, but when he explained that he needed a peer reviewer with a predisposition to a villainous mentality- well. As I said, I must confess to some curiosity.”_

“I’m gonna kill that kid,” Jason tells the elderly woman scooping up dried hibiscus flowers. She gives him a startled look and raises a hand dramatically to her mouth, barely the height of Jason’s chest, so he rolls his eyes and hands her the piloncillo she’d had a beady eye on from the high shelf over the bins. She nods in acknowledgment, adjusts her shawl, and moves back along the cramped aisle.

“ _O_ _h, good_ ,” says Luthor, sounding pleased. _“You see, unfortunately, my curiosity does not outweigh my displeasure at being woken forty-seven times in one night via my home phone, each of my cell phones, various other communicators, my laptop and desktop computers, my television, my television speakers, my smart home system, and finally my alarm clock, to answer questions on the successful acquisition and retention of henchmen.”_

“Oh, my god.” Jason stares down at the bin of Earl Grey tea in horror.

“ _Quite_.”

“How much coffee had he _had_?”

“ _If he were anyone else, I think I would have assumed him to be quite exceptionally drunk. Terribly uncouth, of course, regardless of the intoxicant.”_

How many people actually know that Jason’s (technically) (not so distantly) related to this kid? He can just _feel_ his street cred spiraling down the drain out in all the distant corners of the universe. “I mean. Shit,” he says. “I kinda feel like I should apologize for a little bit’a this.”

“ _Oh? Well, then, I suppose it’s even more appropriate that you be the one to take the contract. After all, I did briefly wonder if The Authority might be willing to consider his actions a crime against humanity-”_

“Fuck, don’t do that.” Earl Grey be damned, Jason needs the _Lady_ Grey today. He shovels a healthy scoop into a bag and moves on to the jasmine-green and ginger-dandelion. “You ever see Tim Drake and Midnighter play three-dimensional chess?”

“ _I haven’t had that pleasure, no.”_

“Well, it sure ain’t a fuckin’ pleasure. They never even get to the game board, they just tell each other their first handful of moves and then they’re both speed-predicting the rest of the gameplay and one’a them is yellin’ ‘checkmate,’ and then Tim gets up on the furniture so he can shout his moves right in Midnighter’s face and it all starts over again. Gettin’ louder an’ louder every time. For hours. Shit. Last time me an’ Apollo ended up hidin’ in the kitchen, sittin’ on the floor behind the island eatin’ peanut butter cookies and readin’ the Farmer's Almanac until Tim went hoarse and fell off the table and they had to call it a draw.”

“ _How…fascinating,”_ Luthor murmurs.

“That’s one f-word for it.”

 _“Do you know,”_ Luthor says, and he sounds thoughtful. Shit. That’s never a good thing. “ _I’ve always thought Drake was rather wasted on his cesspit of a city. Such a brilliant mind.”_

“What little of it hasn’t been eaten away by coffee acids and fast food chemicals, sure,” Jason says cautiously. He doesn’t like the turn of this conversation. Ironically, everybody was on safer ground when he was being tasked with a hit. He starts edging his oversized bulk down the overcrowded aisles to the cashier counter.

“ _That’s easily remedied, I’m sure,”_ Luthor says, with the airy confidence of a man who’s never tried to pry a days-old Venti cup from the hands of a teenage caffeine addict holed up hissing and biting under his bed, armed only with welding gloves and a stolen escrima stick. Even under the circumstances, Jason can’t help a full-on nasally snort of laughter.

“Uh-huh. Yeah, sure. You go for it.”

“ _And of course, he’s such a wonderfully close friend of my dear son, Connor.”_

“Your- oh, yeah. Him. Hey, do you know if they’re dating or not? I got money ridin’ on that and the squirt won’t give up the goods.”

_“…I’m afraid I can’t say. On second thoughts, I’m canceling the contract. I believe I have a different proposal to put to Mr. Drake.”_

“Hang on, hang on. You can’t just back out of a verbal agreement like that. I should sue you for breach of promise. How do you know I don’t already got the punk strung up in a basement somewhere?”

_“If that’s the case, I applaud you for your speedy work, and wish you joy with him. I suggest you make very free with the duct tape. But, as I said, I have other plans now, so please don’t maim him unduly.”_

“You’re not gonna entice him to be your little on-call Brainiac if you call the coffee thing ‘uncouth’ to his face,” Jason warns, dumping his little bags of tea on the worn wooden counter. “There are plenty of other rogues out there he can go badger Cliff Notes out of. Hell, you’re probably his third or fourth choice. Definitely after the Penguin. That guy’s got local insight and the set-up for an adorable pet.” The shop proprietor eyes him warily, but Jason just shakes his head and fishes a wad of cash out of his pocket, and he promptly begins ringing up Jason’s purchases on the ancient brass cash register. It’s the Bowery; nobody asks questions around here so long as you pay your bill and don’t cause property damage.

“ _Unnecessarily rude, but a fair point,”_ Luthor muses. “ _I_ _suppose I’ll have to consider the matter. Do enjoy your tea, Hood. Personally, I’ve always preferred rosemary and sage.”_

And, well.

Jason doesn’t even know why he’s surprised, really.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm writing this to avoid doing the work I actually have to do....
> 
> Intra-punctuatory spacing (I'm probably making that phrase up but it says exactly what I mean, channel your inner Shakespeare, folks) keeps going wacky when I copy-paste into the AO3 chapter text box. I tried to find and correct them all this time, but *shrug*


	4. Chapter 4

“ _Little Wing!”_

“No.”

“ _Awwwwwww.”_

And such is the power of a Dick Grayson pout, even just by sound, that Jason actually slows his jog, finds a shadowed corner of the roof he’s on. He’s somewhere in midtown Gotham, just at the edge of Chinatown; out of his normal range, for sure. He should probably be grateful it’s any Bat come to rag on him other than Bruce, really.

“I’m guessin’ Oracle patched you into my comms, which means I can’t kick you off anyway.”

“ _Nope!”_

“Fuckin’ great.” And it’s been such a long night already. Jason sinks to a crouch behind the castellated wall of the roof and pulls a pack of nicotine gum from a pocket of his cargos. He unlatches the helmet and tips it up long enough to spit the old piece into an old plastic vegetable sack from another pocket and stuff a new square into his mouth. “Whaddaya want?”

“ _Weeeeeell….”_

“Spit it out, I don’t got all night.”

“ _What, like you just spit out your gum? ‘Cause that was kinda gross, Little Wing. Normal people don’t carry around chewed gum.”_

“Are you- are you watching me?” Jason demands. He rises to a defensive stance and searches the rooftops around him, using all the filters his helmet can give him. No dice. “You fuckin’ Bat creeps and your fuckin’ stalking! Where are you?”

“ _Oh, I’m with Oracle,”_ Dick says airily. “ _Benched with a sprained ankle._ ” No wonder he sounds so damn chipper. “ _She’s letting me hang out and play with her cameras tonight.”_

“If she’s lettin’ you play with anythin’ then I’m an actual tweety-bird,” Jason snaps. But he knows there’s no point trying to get out of sight; Dick couldn’t have hacked his comms or found him on Babs’ camera network without her help, so if he tries to run, she’ll probably just help Dick find him again. “Why are you buggin’ me if you got her and all her shit there to keep you busy?”

“ _Weeeeeell. I was just curious, really.”_

“About what.” If he’s not gonna get any real work done, he might as well do a little saunter down into Chinatown. Tim’s whole protection racket malarkey had actually given Jason ideas; lately, he’s been keeping _out_ the protection rackets in more areas than usual, specifically in exchange for unsolicited- but happily accepted- hum bao buns and other snacks. He hops down to the ground with a three-point landing and sets off.

“ _About you and Red Robin. When did the two of you get all buddy-buddy, huh? And why am I never invited?”_ Ugh, there’s that audible pout again. Jason probably should have expected a call like this, except for the fact that he feels like the Bats shouldn’t be calling him _at all_. But did he really think he was going to get away with a little bird dropping in through his window, and no follow-up? People are so used to Batman being the big bad of the nighttime that they tend to forget it’s Nightwing you really need to look out for. The anger of a gentle man; that’s Dick all over. He’s got as much anger in him as anybody else in his stupid, repressed bat colony, he just likes to pretend otherwise. But it all comes out in a molten, seething tsunami when someone he loves is on the line.

And Jason has a cold, sinking feeling that he might be toeing the line with Tim. 

Dammit, it's not even his _fault._ The brat's the one who's running after _him!_

“There’s no me and Red Robin, and we’re not buddy-buddy,” Jason insists, even though he knows it’s futile. This is just shaping up to be a waste of a night. There aren’t even any enforcers roaming around, and he’s already given away all the cash he brought out with him tonight, and now he _really_ wants a hum bao. “There’s nothin’ goin’ on. Who told you that?”

“ _Red Robin,”_ Dick says promptly. _“You know he thinks you’re the total cat’s knees? I am_ jealous _,_ _Little Wing, but it is the cutest thing to see how excited he gets when he talks about you. Oh, and Oracle told me, she saw him climbing in your window. And Agent A, who wouldn’t let me have a cannoli, and oh my god, what the heck even? I want your cannoli!”_

“That sounds so wrong,” Jason mutters.

“ _I bet you two were so adorable cooking together! I want to come next time.”_

Okay, well, maybe Dick’s not pissed off, after all. This isn’t actually any better, though- if Tim’s somehow infected him with his delusions that Jason’s…whatever Tim thinks he is (and who knows what’s actually going through that maniacal little peabrain’s head), and Dick’s decided to pretend that he and Jason are real-life brothers again, there will be _no escaping_ the Dick Greyson Octopus Arms of doom. Not from anywhere in the multiverse. 

“There isn’t gonna _be_ a next time,” Jason says, and tries to tell himself he’s not whining. “There wasn’t supposed to be a first time. He was only there because he was stalkin’ me and freaked out about my cannoli mold.”

“ _Why did he freak out?”_

“Don’t ask me, it’s just a metal tube.” Which once held high explosives meant to take down an aircraft, but. It’s not like it does _now_ , which is all that matters, right?

 _“Huh. I’ll ask him.”_ Shit. “ _Aaaanyway, I figured, since you and Red Robin are getting on so great now-“_

“No, we’re not!”

“ _-you could give me some advice on a little problem we’re having.”_

Oooh. Heavy-set dude, ten o’clock. Shiny black boots. Big overcoat. Slicked-back hair. Painfully stereotypical but promising. “What kind of problem?” Jason asks suspiciously.

“ _Well. You know how RR was in Cali with the Titans last week?”_

“No,” Jason mutters, dropping his voice as he begins tailing the heavy in earnest. The guy’s heading for his favorite Taiwanese bakery. Things are finally looking up. “I didn’t know. Because we don’t talk. Because he’s a fuckin’ menace and I don’t like him.”

_“Don’t be silly. Anyway, apparently he didn’t actually sleep for the entire seven days he was there and survived almost solely thanks to caffeine pills and experimental battlefield drugs developed with his team’s speedster, so by the time anybody caught up with him on the eighth day, he was clinging to the top of the launch tower at SpaceX, calling it ‘my precious,’ and shrieking that an ignoramus like Elon Musk doesn’t deserve to have his own spaceship when B won’t even let Red drive the Batplane.”_

Jason stops short.

“ _Oh, and he t.p.’d Musk’s house in there somewhere, too.”_

The maybe-enforcer’s just stepped into the bakery, even though the sign’s flipped to ‘Closed’ and the only staff members left are clearly cleaning up for the night, but Jason can’t get his brain back online enough to move.

“ _So, since you’ve been spending so much time together, and Bruce thinks you’ve got such a great influence on him now, I wondered if you might have some advice on how to play this.”_

“Uh,” says Jason. “Is he. I mean, is he okay now?”

“ _Red? Oh, sure, he’s fine. Slept for a day and a half, woke up screaming about tribbles and didn’t remember anything. But, uh, B is out of town with some of the JL right now, so this is kinda on me. And you, now! Welcome to big brother-hood! Now help me wrangle our dear, sweet little one.”_

“Woah, woah, woah. This ain’t got nothin’ to do with me.” Jason even holds up his hands in protest, knowing Babs’ cameras will see him from somewhere. “This is your shitstorm. Can’t you just have the kid write an apology note? Did he even do any actual damage?”

“ _He didn’t do any property damage to SpaceX, but there were plenty of staff on-site, so there’s a lot of video of the ranting. And, you know, the trespass.”_

“Aw, shit. Musk threatening to sue?”

 _“I mean, I don’t know if he actually_ can _sue somebody without a known identity?_ ” Dick says hopefully. _“Oracle’s working on that and she’s pretty sure he’s going to be out of luck there. But I was kind of hoping we could get this all taken care of and under the rug before B gets back. You know. So I don’t lose babysitter privileges again.”_

Jason really wants to ask what he means by _again_ , but Dick will only take it as proof that Jason’s interested in their lives or wellbeing or some sappy shit like that, so it’s probably not worth it. “So let O deal with Musk, problem solved. Hell, set Lex Luthor on him, Luthor’s been tryin’ to find ways to get into Red’s good books.” 

“ _He_ what _??_ ”

“Never mind,” Jason says quickly. Oops. Dick Greyson Protective Instincts: aroused. Sorry, kid. “Long story.”

“ _Which we tragically do not have time for, I agree, but you are_ definitely _explaining that one later, mmmkay?”_

Jason just grunts and leans up against the corner of a wall to wait the heavy out, just inside the shadow of an alley. No sense rushing in and making an embarrassing scene if he’s just the line cook’s boyfriend or something. 

_“Right, rain check. Anyway, problem is very much un-solved. Because now that RR knows what he did, he’s standing by it, and refuses to write an apology. Actually, he’s saying he should take this as an opportunity to join the Space Race with free publicity and claim ‘first Earth-to-Alien contact’ by dragging Miss Martian or Martian Manhunter out in costumes from the_ Star Trek _props department.”_

Jason thunks his helmet against the wall. It’s not very satisfying. “Of course he is.”

“ _Surprisingly, J’onn is going along with it. Apparently he finds Red Robin very persuasive, and he says it might be fun. Green Lantern offered to play an alien, too, but Red turned him down. Said he wouldn’t be authentic enough. Poor guy was crushed. You’d think he’d been rejected for the prom.”_

 _“_ Oh, my god, I can’t do this,” Jason whispers. “I literally died and was brought back by a half-millennium-old megalomaniac and I’m more sane than all of you.”

 _“Well, then you have some sanity to spare, because I could sure use some,”_ Dick snipes. “ _Just talk to Red, please? He won’t listen to me, and he’s blocking my calls, anyway. And now that half our friends-”_

“What do you mean, _our_ friends-“

“ _-are encouraging him because they think it’s funny, I’m legit afraid that the next time I see him he’s going to be waving from the window of the NASA space shuttle he’s just stolen on Cape Canaveral.”_

“Merritt Island,” Jason says. It’s stupid, but it’s the only thing he can think of to say.

“ _See? You’re both so clever,”_ Dick coos. _“Like clever red peas in a little red pod. Oracle, what peas are red? Do adzuki beans come in pods?”_

Ugh. Adzuki beans. That just reminds Jason that he’s hungry, and that his guy still hasn’t come out of the bakery. Maybe it’s time to cut the cord on this mind trip of a conversation and take a little peek inside. “I’ll talk to him,” he says, because he figures that literally nothing else will get Dick off the line right now. “But no promises. And it’s not my fault if he winds up arrested at NASA.”

Dick scoffs. “ _As if he’d get arrested. We taught him better than that. Thanks, Little Wing, you’re the best!”_

And Jason…

It’s like no time has passed, but so _much_ time, also, because he and Dick were never really like that, before. But now it’s like everybody around him is suddenly deciding with no rhyme or reason to skip all the painful interim crap, the transition period from what they were just days or weeks ago to…whatever they’re going to be now, something Jason hasn’t even decided yet that he _wants_ to be. They’re just skipping it like it doesn’t need to happen, they can just jump to the end where everything’s all hunky-dory and Nightwing would trust fall into Jason’s arms in a heartbeat, and Jason is the one left feeling like his chest is squeezing up like a blood orange in a juicer. He has to screw his eyes shut and blink a dozen times to clear his vision, and when he’s done, his comms are vacant.

Coincidentally, the suspicious-lookin’ dude is just stepping out of the bakery, and those are definitely knuckle dusters he’s slipping into his pocket. Convenient, because Jason suddenly has a hell of a lot of energy to burn up.

The dou sha bao he gets in return are delicious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU to everyone who has kudos'd, bookmarked, subscribed, and commented! Your support is very much loved, adored, and cuddled in the night with the good cocoa from the top cupboard <3


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this chapter is pretty unfinished/unpolished, but I’m posting anyway because I am fucking tired and I need something intensely fictional in my life right this minute. 
> 
> I work in a hospital in a major city. This shit is no joke. I saw a veteran, tough-as-nails Care Assistant in CCU accidentally drop her mask on the floor before she could put it on, and I swear she was nearly in tears as she threw it away. That’s how short of supplies we are here :(
> 
> And if I hear one more kid tell me “man, if I get the flu then I don't really care, I'm young and healthy, but I just can’t do this social distancing. You gotta live your best life, you can’t live in fear, yanno? Yolo!” I swear I will actually drown them in a sink. See how they like living in THAT kind of fear. This is your righteous reward, you selfish willfully ignorant little asshole, die like the innocent stranger in your street who followed all the rules but picked up the virus anyway because you decided to go to a fucking house party and then crowded up too close behind them in the checkout line while buying your fucking frozen pizzas. 
> 
> Whew. I needed that. 
> 
> Actually, one last thing: blood stocks are trending very low. It depends on where you live, but most places are still able to do by-appointment donations. Please, please, please. From the bottom of my very tired heart, please consider making an appointment if you're healthy. Double kudos if you try automated donation/apheresis, but everything is always needed!
> 
> Right, that’s it. Sorry to be such a downer. I promise I'll direct inject coffee or something before the next one.

_“Is this_ _Red Hood ?_ ” 

“Not at four in the morning on my night off, it’s not,” Jason groans. He stuffs his face in his pillow and half hopes he’ll suffocate. 

“ _U_ _h_ _…._ ” 

“What do you _want_ , Superpunk? I’ve been gone for a week. I literally just got home to this planet yesterday.” 

“ _Hey, it’s not like I_ wanted _to call you. I’m just doing Rob a favor.”_

“I don’t know any Robs.” 

_“Red Robin?_ _Gotham vigilante_ _?_ _Teen Titan? Kicked your ass a time or two?”_

“Whoever told you that is a filthy goddamn liar,” Jason growls, and kicks his way out of bed. Apparently this conversation is happening whether he wants it to or not. “Red Robin is a pipsqueak who couldn’t kick a Christmas tree in the balls.” 

“ _T_ _hat’s my best friend you’re talking about, so watch your mouth!”_

“Did you call for a reason?” Jason says, exasperated. “Fuck’s sake, I hope you _are_ dating. You two brats deserve each other.” 

“ _What? We’re not- we aren’t-”_ And to Jason’s delighted surprise, Superboy dissolves into stammering, gibberish protestations, eventually lapsing into embarrassed silence. 

“Wow,” he says. He’s pissed off at being woken up, and it’s so lovely to be able to share the feeling. “Wow, man. Yeah. I’m really feelin’ the sincerity, there. Is that what you called about? Want some inside info on the kid’s favorite flowers or somethin’?” 

Superboy hangs up. 

Jason cackles with glee. 

He stretches his arms over his head and twists his back with a satisfying crack. It’s too late to go back to bed; he’s not wired like that. But now that he’s up with time to spare, he might as well make himself a nice early breakfast. Miso soup and fruit salad cut into cute little shapes? Nah, he did that only a couple weeks back when Black Bat suddenly dropped in and stared at him, nose to nose, batarang and .45 respectively at each other’s throats, until the hair-trigger silence was broken by the growling of her stomach. 

Well, what the hell was he supposed to do? He’d stuffed his gun in the waistband of his jeans and grabbed his box of cookie cutters for the melon slices, because Cass is a girl, and girls don’t usually tease him for getting arty with his food. 

“Little brother,” she’d said approvingly, and proceeded to wolf down her soup like some mutt from a cartoon, sound effects and all. 

Anyway. Not that again. Oh, but there’s the brioche dough he’d made when he got in last night, resting in the fridge so he can bake it up later for Roy to take to Lian’s preschool PTA; he could steal just a little bit- omelet and brioche à tête? _Yes._

Jason carefully pinches a half a palmful of dough from the brioche, re-balls the rest into a proper boule, and returns it to the fridge for later. He rolls it gently into a rough ball between his hands and sets it on the counter under a towel to bench rest. 

Superboy calls back as he’s heading up to the roof garden. 

“ _Alright_ _, Hood_ _, look. I don’t want to deal with you, you don’t want to deal with me, but we don’t have a choice. This is for Red Robin. Alright?”_

Jason frowns as he mounts the roof, making for the little raised beds he’d built for herbs and vegetables. It’s early in the year, so most things are only green sprouts still, many of them under glass cloches or burlap sacking to keep out the night chill, but the chives go just about year round, and the basil under its cloche has been pretty hardy. He keeps his lettuces and chards on planting rotation to be in harvest as much as possible, too. Plenty of options for a decent omelet. 

Oh, but there. 

_There._

Those aren’t herbs. Or vegetables. 

Little white flowers on a stiff stalk and a flat base of clustering, tiny round leaves. The roots, Jason knows, are long, spidery, and trailing. And at the top, crowning the flowers? 

Seed pods. 

_Popping_ seed pods. 

He’d only built these boxes the year before, and these weeds had been the absolute bane of his existence over the summer. The plants grow quickly with a bit of rain, producing packs of seed pods for every stalk, and the mature seed pods _burst_ with the slightest hint of movement, sending dozens and dozens of seeds far and wide in every direction. He’d gone into a full-on pit rage ripping the damn things out. 

But it had been too late; the seeds had spread. 

And here they were again. 

“Oh,” he whispers softly. “Oh, you foul demons. You hell spawn, you cunning fiends of the cruelest reaches of satanic imagination. Oh, you have been clever and vicious, launching your attack while I was away. You came swiftly with your legions and you have mounted a most _valiant_ effort against me.” He brushes a hand gently over the stalk of one of one of the weeds, running his fingers from the pretty white flowers to the tiny round leaves. Then he _wrenches_ the plant from the earth, roots and all. “But this was your last strivation,” he growls low , “your final and ultimate challenge into which you have thrown every last drop of your lifesblood, your utmost exertion, and your play is run. It is my turn to set the battle now, and I will not be daunted; I will not be wearied. I will not surrender. I will not rest until either you or I are gone from this place _for good_.” 

“ _So, like,”_ says Superboy. “ _I know metas aren’t_ _technically_ _allowed in Gotham, but I_ _c_ _an be there_ _pretty_ _fast_ _._ _If you need backup_ _._ _”_

“Huh? Nah.” Jason eyes the beds. Weeding by laser vision might be kinda cool, but probably not worth getting Kon in trouble with Bruce. Jason really has no beef with the guy, after all. And it’s not worth risking the garlic bulbs he can’t remember where he planted. “I think I can handle it.” 

“ _You sure, man? All those, uh, legions of demons and whatever?”_

Huh? Oh. _Oh._ Jason almost starts to explain, but catches himself at the last moment. “Nah, nah, it’s fine. What’s a couple’a measly legions, amiright? If a legit multitude pops up, I’ll call Starfire.” 

“ _Your funeral, dude.”_

“Eh, wouldn’t be the first time,” Jason mutters. The weeds will just have to wait. He starts slicing his herbs with his karambit. 

“ _What?_ ” 

“Never mind. What did you actually want? Before I go deal with the legions?” 

“ _Oh._ _Well, I was talking to Rob while he was on patrol earlier, and something went down with what he_ said _were probably just some of Ra’s al Ghul’s guys giving him the monthly shakedown. But he can take those ninja clowns in his sleep, no problem.”_

Jason finds he’s started flicking his karambit in his fingers without really noticing. One of these days somebody is really gonna have to go _do_ something about Ra’s and his creepy obsession with a teenage boy. 

The Red Hood takes a hard line with men who have obsessions with teenagers. 

_“But something went off-script, I guess._ _They weren’t ninjas, or t_ _here were more of them, or they were fighting_ _dirty_ _. I wanted to come back him up but he refused. He said they were_ _fighting to subdue him and take him away somewhere, not kill him, and I should just keep an ear out in case he needed a pick-up on KonAir._ _I_ _f he didn’t make contact by 0500, I was supposed to call you._ _His suit tracker is still working, but no contact yet,_ _and_ _I got bored of waiting for five o’clock._ _”_

Wait, what? “Why’d he want you to call _me_?” 

_“Don’t ask me, man. If it was up to me I’d go myself. Or call the rest of the rest of the Titans. Or even Nightwing. You know, basically anybody who hasn’t tried to kill him recently.”_

Jason’s already back down the fire escape without really thinking about it. He tosses his handful of greens on the counter and heads back to his room to start suiting up. “He didn’t say anythin’ at all? Not, like, ‘call Red Hood because he’s good at makin’ distractions?’ Or ‘call Red Hood ‘cause this is one’a his rogues?’ Or ‘call Red Hood because I’m still super duper pissed that he smoked my ass at pinochle and I hope he gets whacked off in my place?’” 

“ _Dude, I think he just expects you_ _to rescue him. Or, you know,_ _catalyze his self-rescu_ _e_ _._ _B_ _e the springboard to his_ _flying cannonball of shitshow_ _or whatever._ _”_

“Fuckin’ great. Fuckin' little twerp always wreckin' my plans," Jason mutters, mostly to himself. "Thinkin' he can dump his ninjas off on somebody else and ruin my day off. Like he always thinks he can just crash on somebody _else's_ sofa with his fuckin' Wizards and Whatever cardgame shit like I don't got any plans on a weekend, got Arsenal all hooked on that bullshit too, now, and d'you know the last time I went out fuckin' _drinking_ on a Friday instead of stayin' in sewing stars on wizard capes and watchin' those two assholes talk stats at each other all night long?"

" _You can sew? Bro, can you teach me to mend my shirts? I was thinking about taking off the sleeves. Letting the_ guns _out."_

"And that brioche à tête was gonna be fuckin’ lit, too,” Jason sighs. No time for it now, though. At least he always has homemade granola bars these days; he’d bought a cheap dehydrator at a sidewalk sale and now he can make his own bars with pineapple, coconut, acerola cherries, toasted almonds, and dark chocolate. Take a bite’a that, Kellogg’s. 

He shimmies out of his pj’s and starts gearing up: briefs, undersuit, then what body armor he can wear under jeans and a hoodie, because he can’t exactly go out in his Red Hood uniform first thing in the morning. He’ll have to change when he gets to wherever he’s going, which always sucks. 

Nothing like stripping down to socks and a body stocking down a dark alley on a freezing cold night to make you question your life choices. 

_"_ _Dude, I hate_ _having to listen_ _to people changing clothes_ _._ _I_ _don’t want to hear your_ _fly zip._ _I feel violated,”_ Superboy complains. 

“Then don’t listen,” Jason grumbles. Why is Superboythe one feeling violated, here? 

_“It’s not like I can help it!”_

“Well, I’m not going out with an unzipped fly just ‘cause you got delicate super-ears. That would look super dumb with the thigh holsters.” 

_“A_ _re you actually going?”_ Superboy sounds surprised, which is odd, because- 

“You’ll tell on me if I don’t,” Jason points out. “And then everybody’ll be pissed, and if I go runnin’ outta town right now I’ll be on my own. Arsenal signed up to be a field trip chaperone this month.” 

_“Sometimes I think I can’t wait to get out of Kansa_ _s_ _, and then I remember what you guys on the east coast are all like_ _._ _I wonder if it’s something in the tap water,”_ Superboy muses idly. 

“There’s two schools of thought in Gotham about the tap water.” Jason stands in front of the bathroom mirror to smooth his hoodie over his shoulder plates, then heads back to the kitchen to try to salvage his bit of risen brioche dough. “Either you never touch the stuff, ‘cause you’re not a fuckin’ idiot, or you ‘bravely and cleverly’ drink it from birth and probably end up highly resistant to a handful of poisons and toxins. Red Robin’s in the latter category, obviously.” 

_“Which one are you?”_

Jason grins, a wolfish thing that bares his teeth. “Who gives a fuck about the water? I’m Red Hood. I’m resistant to _everything_.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do love you all, even if I'm being a grump.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. When Alfred says flapjacks I mean UK-definition flapjacks, which are like traybake oatcake bars, not US-definition flapjacks, which are pancakes. Alfred believes in whole grains for breakfast.  
> 2\. I hope you’re all staying well and staying sane. I’m sorry if staying home is hard. I know that things are financially terrifying for a lot of people. But staying home is literally saving lives, and it is so, so appreciated. Seriously. (Unless you’re going out for a blood donation appointment; then just wash those hands and eat your greens :D ) But I hope you’re all hangin’ in there! <3  
> 3\. Who doesn’t know what day of the week it is anymore without looking it up? *raises hand* I want to run away and start a new island colony of peace and love and long sleep, who’s with me?  
> You're all invited, because you're all lovely and your wonderful comments have been my happy space.

_“Master Jason.”_

The smooth tones roll uninvited into Jason’s helmet comms, clear as a bell even over the gunning engine of his bike and just as startling, but this is one hacker he doesn’t ever mind. Jason grins.

“Shouldn’t I be sayin’ somethin’ about names on comms, Agent A?”

The old man sniffs. _“Perhaps if I were given a more tasteful alternative to your proper name, I would use it. I’m quite sure you’re creative enough to come up with an appropriate soubriquet of your own, rather than continuing with your current adopted title.”_

Jason rolls his eyes and takes a corner so low his knee nearly skims the pavement. “Everyone’s a critic.”

_“You must admit a certain crassness to the connotations.”_

“Maybe I like it that way? Geez. I could go _really_ crass and call myself King Hamlet.”

 _“I will take an extremely dim view if I find you skulking in any bedroom closets, young man,”_ Alfred snips frostily, and Jason huffs a laugh. No matter how rocky a time he ever had under the Wayne roof, Alfred always made him feel like he belonged by simply not giving him any other choice. _“I’ve been informed that you will be embarking on a rescue of Red Robin.”_

“So’ve I. You got any more intel for me?”

 _“None whatsoever,”_ Alfred says, with the faintest hint of irritation in the cool, collected modulation of his voice. “ _Red Robin is a clever and spirited young person who delights in his independence by insisting upon living and working alone, against my express recommendation, and removing all of my own trackers and monitors from his suits at every opportunity and substituting his own. I have no details of his recent cases, and while I believe his compatriots in California have some method of maintaining observations of his location and vital signs, I, at present, do not.”_

“Superboy did say that his tracker was on and stationary,” Jason offers. Alfred’s is the shittiest job of all of them, he knows; sitting and waiting in the dark for somebody to come home is the absolute worst. “I got the coordinates off him. Just track me. I don’t mind you listenin’ in, so long as it stays just you.”

 _“Thank you, dear boy. I will ensure the line remains private.”_ Alfred sounds brisk and unconcerned, but Jason knows he’s dead serious- any Bats on his end try to poke an ear in and they’ll get that ear boxed, even from halfway across the city.

Alfie might never have worn tights, but he’s no slouch.

“No prob. I’ll be to the site in just a few. Better get the med bay ready for us; you know even if Red’s already managed to take down his kidnappers by the time I get there, he’s probably at least managed to give himself tetanus.”

 _“He has proven to be a remarkably resilient child,”_ Alfred says diplomatically. “ _How terribly fortunate he is to have such a strong, forthright personal champion as yourself protecting his best interests.”_

Jason nearly wipes out in a small puddle.

 _“Flapjacks and cocoa will be waiting on your return,”_ comes the final calm sally, _“as I’m sure you’ve not had time for a proper breakfast,”_ and then the line clicks and goes silent.

Jason breathes out, slow, and if he’s just a little shaky he chooses to put that down to the frantic overcorrection he’d had to do to pull up out of the near-spill. “Fuckin’ hell.”

The comm clicks back on. “ _Language, Master Jason.”_

***

Jason rolls up to a warehouse near the end of the docks and cuts his engine. He stashes his bike in the shadow of the building, tucked between a couple of old crates and rusty barrels. It’s fuckin’ _weird_ to be out in daylight like this. No workers are down this way; it looks like the trains stop unloading several warehouses back, and the nearest few piers are vacant, but the docks are grittily alive with machinery noise and swinging cranes.

But this is where Red Robin’s tracker’s been holding steady since he got snatched last night. 

Jason pulls his gear out of his panniers and kits up into his Red Hood uniform. He feels even more self-conscious than usual when he feels sunlight on his bare calves as he hops awkwardly from his jeans into his combat trousers and the legs of his undersuit ride up out of his socks.

All he needs is to be caught on the docks with his shirt off and his pants around his ankles. If Red Hood gets charged with attempted solicitation of the honest and hard-working longshoremen, he’ll never let Tim forget it.

Worse, Roy will never let _him_ forget it.

The warehouse is silent, which could be good or bad. Red Robin might already have his kidnappers trussed up in a pile, and just be waiting on help for the clean-up now that it’s daylight and he doesn’t have any civilian clothes; or the kidnapper could still be in control, and unconcerned about interruption. No guards wait outside the doors or patrol the building, which, again, could go either way. A rogue who feels confident enough to not bother with guards is usually a bad thing. A rogue who feels the need to hide so deeply they won’t even risk posting guards is much nicer, in Jason’s opinion.

He takes a furtive glance around, climbs up the stack of crates, and jumps, grabbing onto the sill of a propped-open window with his fingertips. He hauls himself up with brute strength, careful to keep his own body or the various fixtures on his uniform from making any noise against the side of the building, and shimmies through the window onto the narrow ledge of the wall framing.

It’s dim inside; weak Gotham sunlight filters through a multitude of holes in the roof and cracks in the walls, but the swinging fluorescent lights aren’t lit. Electricity’s probably been cut off to this unused end of the docks to keep out squatters. The warehouse is empty of cargo or machinery, save for a few scattered pieces of antiquated equipment parts left to rust, and the usual buildup of filth and detritus lines the corners.

It’s also empty of Red Robins.

Jason takes all this in in a heartbeat. Awkwardly, he also takes in the thirty or so armed men standing idly around, typical unmasked goon types, all staring right at him.

Nobody speaks. 

Jason slowly drops the floor.

“Heeeey,” he says. “I’m guessin’ this ain’t the craft fair? Shoot. My bad.”

The nearest guy looks at him, nonplussed. “You…sneak through the window at the craft fair?”

Jason can’t roll his eyes at the guy so he just shakes his helmet despairingly. “Man, how are you supposed’ta bag the best zucchini bread if you don’t scope the place out first? Unless you _want_ to look like a total jackass by goin’ between three different tables, squeezin’ all the goods.”

There are several thoughtful hums and approving nods in the background. It’s all Jason can do to not slap his hands to his face. What the actual fuck has that little _brat_ drug him into this time?

The goons are just staring at him. Jason sighs and his shoulders slump. “Anybody seen a twerpy little troll in a cape, about yea high?” he tries, waving a hand around the level of his sternum.

There’s some shuffling. If these weren’t grown men and armed kidnappers, Jason would think it was _guilty_ shuffling.

“See, here’s the thing,” a rangy guy near the front says, one of the older-looking men in the room. Apparently he’s decided to be spokesman. “I like Red Robin. I do. He’s got a lot goin’ for him. As soon as he started comin’ around the Alley, passin’ out business cards with links to his CV website-”

Quite simultaneously, Jason’s gut drops into his shoes, and his blood pressure shoots through the roof.

“-I said to myself, now, _there’s_ a one who’s _goin’_ places, I said. I mean. The coffee gift card codes attached to the business cards were just a nice, friendly touch, weren’t they, boys?”

“He’s not a bad kid,” a younger one at the back admits. “Like, I’ll work for him if he comes out of this on top. He was offering full vision and dental. Education benefits scheme. Pretty sweet.”

“And a fully-matched 401(k),” another adds. “You don’t see that kinda investment in workforce retention much these days.”

The others nod in sage agreement.

Jason holds up his hands before they can continue, because, somehow, he’s actually starting to feel like the bad guy for wanting to drag Tim home by the ear and lock him away forever.

And that’s just unfair.

“Right, thank you, I got it, he’s a perfect little saint when he’s not dancing naked around trash fires in the moonlight chanting war cries to the techno-gods. Now _where is he_?”

There are a lot of exchanged glances. Jason’s been off-footed and perturbed since he climbed in through the window; now his hackles are really rising. Tim’s tracker says he’s here. _Tim should be here._

“Look,” says the spokesman, sounding like he’s trying for placating. “When Red Robin approached _us_ , he didn’t seem to realize that we were already workin’ for other people- people who don’t exactly have a two-weeks’ notice policy, if you know what I mean.”

“So, who are you workin’ for?” Jason asks impatiently. His fingers are starting to itch.

“Well, there’s the thing,” the guy says, and he really does look regretful now. Most of them do. “ _I_ work for one guy, along with about a half a dozen others here behind me. Max and Daniil here, and their crew, they work for somebody else. Then there’s Esteban’s crew, and Romain’s. We’re all runnin’ for small-timers, dealers and hustlers. But when word got around about your boy Red Robin slippin’ around and tryin’ to pick up stakes somewhere, and nobody quite knew where? Well, some self-protection factions started formin’ up pretty quick.”

“Oh…my god.” Jason can’t help it. He sinks down to a crouch on the floor, head between his knees, palms covering the eyes of his helmet. “Oh my god. I’m going to kill him. They’re going to kill _me_. He’s started a gang war against _himself_ and he didn’t even know it. Holy shit, what a moron.”

Someone, Esteban, he thinks, dares to come up and pat him on the shoulder. “Kid had the bright ideas,” he says gruffly, like that’s supposed to be some kind of comfort. “Just jumped in too fast. It happens.”

“I mean,” the younger guy pipes up again. “It’s never happened like this before, though, right? You gotta admit. It’s pretty fucking epic.”

“Anyway,” the spokesman cuts in hastily. “We were ordered to take the kid down and deliver him to a third party. And we had to do our jobs, right? You understand that, don’t you, Mr. Hood?” He eyes Jason hopefully. Jason, one iota of self-control away from rocking on his heels and wailing in despair at the unfairness of it all, has absolutely nothing to say, so he goes on quickly. “So we brought him here to the drop point, and took his uniform, like we were told-”

Jason surges to his feet. “You _what_?” He strides forward furiously until he’s towering menacingly over the man with all his bulk, jabbing a gloved finger into his chest. “You _stripped off_ his _clothes_? Do you know how _old_ he is?”

“Roberto didn’t do nothin,’” another heavy interjects, coming up to Jason’s side but wisely not trying to step between them. “We were ordered to get off his clothes to get rid of any trackers, see? We know the Bats got techie shit like that. But we didn’t touch ‘im or nothin.’ Didn’t even peek. We ain’t like that, Mr. Hood.”

Jason glares around at the knot of men clumped warily just outside arm’s reach. Not that it’ll do anything to save them, if he decides to go for them. But they all look so honestly affronted, and most of them so truly disgusted, by what he’s insinuating, that his tensed muscles relax just a little bit.

“I got kids, Mr. Hood,” Roberto chokes, and Jason realizes suddenly that he’s got a hand clenched tight in the thug’s collar, cutting into his air. The man isn’t wriggling to free himself, though. Just looking Jason right in the helmet. He’s older than Bruce, probably, Jason thinks. “I figure a lot of things, from the size of him. I used to think it was a shame to see Red Robin out at night, but word on the street has it you've been lookin’ out for him for a while now, and I think that’s real nice. I think he’ll go real far with his good ideas and somebody like you backin’ him up.”

More general nodding. Jason’s in the Twilight Zone. That’s the only explanation, surely. He shakes Roberto and shoves him back a step, letting go of his collar. “Get back to the clothes.”

“Well. See, we like the kid, like I said,” Roberto goes on quickly, rubbing his throat but standing to attention. “So we put him in the corner there and gave him some coveralls from a longshoreman’s truck and we turned our backs and told him to change into them and throw over his uniform, no funny business, or we’d get into a lot of trouble with our bosses. I figured, the kinda guy who gives gift cards to a fancy coffee place to guys like us is probably going to be pretty classy about that kinda threat, right?”

Jason wants to cry. He put _heads_ in a goddamned _duffle bag_ for chrissake, but Tim the wunderkind gets more loyalty just by bribing the underworld with fucking mocaccinos. It’s not _fair._

And why is Tim all _Jason’s_ problem, anyway? They have a dad. They have an Alfred. They have god-only-knows how many siblings. It is so fuckin’ far past time for somebody else to step up to the plate, Jason thinks, because apparently the criminal population of Gotham sees the Red Hood as a glorified babysitter. He is literally going to have to tar and feather the Penguin to scrounge his reputation back.

Somebody steps up, carrying Red Robin’s neatly folded uniform. 

Jason heaves an exhale that slumps his spine and takes all the energy out of his limbs. Regardless of all the _absolute bullshit what-the-fuck-Tim_ that’s just been dredged up, this is still a rescue mission, and he’s wasting time. “Where is he?” he asks again, weary.

“Red Robin said you’d be comin’ for him,” Roberto says, brisk and businesslike in a way that just makes Jason more tired. “But the third party we were told to hand him off to figured on that, too. We were told to give you this when you showed up.” He holds out a basic black flip phone, open, with a number already keyed in.

Jason takes it. He looks up at Roberto, who shrugs apologetically. He presses dial, and then speaker phone, because it looks fucking idiotic to hold a cellphone up to the side of his helmet and he refuses to do it where people can see.

Besides, Alfred’s still on comms if he hasn’t keeled over from a heart attack or died laughing. He’ll probably need to hear this.

The call picks up on the second ring.

_“Red Hood. Later than I expected.”_

It’s not a voice Jason recognizes. Smug, self-satisfied. Educated Gothamite. “Well, I expected you never, so I guess we’re equally disappointed. What do I gotta do to get you to hand over the squirt, or has he pissed you off enough yet that you’re willing to pay me to take him?”

There’s a pause. He’s not following the script, clearly. Good. Jason just _hates_ making nice with people’s plans. _“I have Red Robin.”_

“Probably,” Jason concedes.

_“…Pardon?”_

“I mean, how do _I_ know that you grabbed the right runt?” Jason asks reasonably. “Capes are a dime a dozen in Gotham. Most of ‘em are actually bigger than a rat, I’ll give you that, and he’s got pretty uniquely awful fashion sense for somebody who isn’t Nightwing, but you never know. Cosplayers can do some pretty authentic DIY.”

_“…I see, you want proof of life.”_

“Eh. I’m not so worried about him staying alive. He’s kinda like bacteria.” Roberto, Esteban, and the others are staring at Jason with a renewed sense of surprise and mild awe for the back-talk. Better than looking at him like a bubbe in a weird hat, at least.

There’s another long pause. Then the kidnapper apparently decides to fuck it, and start over. _“I have Red Robin.”_

“So you said.”

 _“He attempted to exert a takeover of certain businesses and districts of mine,”_ the kidnapper says importantly.

“Did he really try to take over the East Side?” Jason asks curiously.

_“Some of my ventures are in the East Side, yes.”_

“Aw, shit,” Jason sighs. He’s kind of impressed, really. Or he would be, if he weren’t so exasperated.

 _“Now, if we may…'get to business,’ as they say?”_ The smarmy voice chuckles a little. Jason runs down a profile of what he’s dealing with. Businessman, probably a rung or two down from CEO and never likely to get the top job, sticks his fingers and some embezzled money into some dirty pies to make himself feel more powerful and important. Easy to deal with, on his own. More importantly, though, easy to take advantage of by others. No way is this guy working alone. He might think he’s the king of his sordid little heap, but he’s probably tucked deep in the pocket of some of Gotham’s nastiest, and it’s a roulette spin of who- could be drug smugglers, human traffickers, arms dealers, the pimps who keep their women working in indentured servitude. Whoever took Tim, it’s not this guy- it’s somebody who used this guy’s money and influence over the local gangs to get to Red Robin and take him out.

And, suddenly, things aren’t funny anymore.

“I wanna talk to the ringmaster,” he says, voice firm and cold.

_“I…I am the ringleader here, and if you want to-”_

“It’s ringmaster, not ringleader. Trust me, I know more about circus lingo than anybody who doesn’t work in one could ever want to. And you, buddy, are not the ringmaster. You’re a flea. Get me somebody higher up.”

There’s more outraged sputtering, but Jason just waits. The line clicks. A new voice comes on, female, gritty and oily and low. 

_“I told him you weren’t stupid,”_ she says, cool and amused. _“But they never listen to advice from the hired help. Or a woman.”_

“That sucks. Hey, I got advice for you,” Jason growls. “Tell me where Red Robin is, and then run as far away as you can before I fill your knees up with lead.”

She laughs, husky and utterly careless. _“I’ve been working in Gotham longer than either of you brats have been alive, and both of you think you can just sweep in and start taking over any time you feel like it? I’ve had enough. I’ve heard that Red Robin has a particular liking for the East Side? Well, so do I, and I’m tired of being second-in-command._

_“I don’t need to put myself on the Bats’ radar. But I remembered how you used to have it in for this kid not too long ago, so I figured I’d give you a fair shot, outside of whatever deal he’s got going on with you that puts a muzzle on the Red Hood. If you take him down, I hope you’ll remember that I’m the one who gave you the opportunity. Of course, I might decide I want your territory, too. Fair warning.”_

Jason grits his teeth until his jaw aches. He is going to fucking _kill_ Tim for this. If they live through it. “Oh, I’ll remember,” he rumbles. “I gotta say, for a second-in-command, you sure got the supervillain monologuing down pat.”

She rasps another throaty laugh. _“I’m sending the details of our meeting point to your phone. By the way. If I’m the ringmaster,”_ she says, _“what does that make you?”_

Jason grins with all his bared teeth. “I’m the human cannonball.”

One thing's for sure. 

That brioche dough in his fridge is gonna be _so_ fuckin' overproofed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There have been so many brilliant ideas put up in the comments that didn't fit into my story outline that I kind of want to do some spin-off one shots for this. So. Watch this space, I guess, it's probably going to be a little miniseries. (Chapter 1: "Jason Tries to Go Shopping and Has to Pull His Manic Little Goblin Brother Out of a Nest in the Coffee Aisle Shelves." Chapter 2: Jason Goes Swimming and Aquaman Asks Him to Please Tell Mr. Drake-Wayne that Atlantis Actually Doesn't Want New Caledonia, and Tim Can't Buy it, Anyway." Or something like that.)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I’m not super happy with this, but I’ve made you wait long enough, and my slump looks here to stay a while. Hope it’s up to scratch and any forthcoming one-shots help smooth the rough spots. (Planning on them, keep an eye out!)

_“Hey, Jason? It’s Tim. Again. Duh, I guess. Um. Alfred says you’re stable now. So that’s good. He had to use up all the blood bags we had for you. Actually you still needed some more so you’ve got some of my fresh platelets and red blood cells in you now, which makes us, like,_ real _brothers, right? I think he’s given you one of each so far, plus two units of stocked whole blood that were from me. Which is altogether, like…1200 milliliters. Which is, like, a fifth of the blood in your body, if your weight on Alfred’s chart is right. So you’re actually one-fifth me right now, hematologically speaking, isn’t that cool? …Maybe that’s not cool. I dunno. Bye.”_

_“Hey, Jason. Tim again. So…Alfred said if you made it through the night, then ‘we’d know.’ Like. Verbal air quotes and everything. Which is stupid. I mean. You actually_ died _once and you were fine, right? I keep telling everybody this was just a few bullets and they shouldn’t worry so much, but Bruce just patted me on the head and sent me to bed. I think he’s had too many concussions. You know he and Dick are sitting down there with you in the Cave? I kind of hope you don’t wake up right now, because that would be_ super _embarrassing and you’d probably scare the bats when you all start shrieking at each other._

_“Did I tell you I got a bat to land on me the other day? I’ve been feeding them the dried worms from the fish food jar. Don’t tell Bruce. Or Alfred. Well…if you wake up soon I’ll let you feed them with me and you can pet one, okay? They’re really soft. And you’re on loads of antibiotics so it won’t even matter if they bite you. Bye.”_

***

Jason’s in the back office of a locked-down club. Gotham’s indoor smoking ban hasn’t reached this place yet, somehow, even though it was put on the books a decade or more ago, and the walls are stained with more layers of ash and tar than paint.

The men from the warehouse had told him they’d been left behind as “insurance” to make sure he’d cooperate with the whole plan, but, as he’s only too willing, most of them had slunk off along the docks, leaving him to kill time until the evening meet detailed on the phone. He’d thought about officially calling the situation in, of course. He’s not an idiot. But Nightwing’s in Bludhaven, and, even for this, he just can’t stomach the thought of working with Batman.

If anything goes wrong, he’ll call Superboy, to hell with Bruce’s anti-metas rule. The kid’s probably still keeping an ear out. Besides, Alfred no doubt has a master plan of his own.

There’s only one woman in the room, an older lady leaning up against the wall to Jason’s side. He settles his hands loosely near his hips and cocks his head, waiting for her to make the first move.

She smiles. It would be a nice smile, suiting her round, weathered face, if Jason couldn’t see the bloodthirsty gleam in her blue eyes. Like a bookie at a dog fight.

“Red Hood,” she says, friendly and easy. She drops her work boot from the wall where she’d had a foot kicked up and saunters over, the thumbs of her work-worn hands stuffed in the pockets of her sturdy jeans. She barely comes up to his chest, even with the heels of her steel-toe boots and her old-school crop of bleach blond curls. “Glad you could make it.”

Jason jerks his chin to the vacant clutter of the crowded little room. “Did Red Robin? I mean, I know he’s small and bouncy, but he’s usually at least on the visible spectrum.”

She waves a hand to the door at the side of the room, the only other besides the one that brought Jason in from the back alley. “I held up my end. Now, you do me a favor, and get rid of the little brat so that I don’t have to, and I’ll leave you out of my sweep.” She smiles again, eyes flinty. “For now.”

This is a rescue mission. Tim is the primary object here, and Jason knows it. But this woman honestly wigs him a little. She seems sane, which is unusual as hell in their line of work, and street-smart enough to have a clue. “Never caught your name,” he throws out. “Yanno. If I’m gonna be whimpering in fear in the night, don’t I kinda need that part?”

She snorts through her nose, amused and unaffected. In any other scenario at all, he’d peg her as a cool lady, somebody worth sidling over to and chatting up, a stand-out gem of an old gal in the dime-a-dozen tough-as-nails women working hard labor jobs around here. “Anybody ever tell you that you got enough lip on you to work with the Bat?” she asks, round cheeks pink with her smile. But she steps forward, all cheery and easy, and holds out a hand. “Margaret. Call me Madge, if you want.”

***

_“Jason? I’m sorry I yelled in the first voicemail I left you. I thought about just hacking in and deleting it so you wouldn’t have to hear it but I know I promised you I wouldn’t hack any more of your stuff after I accidentally saw those texts from Kori and you got all embarrassed. I didn’t mean to get mad at you. It was just…I’ve never seen you go down, before. You’re, like…I dunno. Maybe you’re not_ actually _always bigger and tough than everything out there but you always look like it ‘cause you always laugh at them._

_“…You’re my Robin.”_

_“Hey, Jay. It’s Tim. Sooo…it’s after astronomical twilight? Dawn is approaching? And you’re still not dead. But you’re not awake either. So I dunno. I don’t know what that means. I guess if you do die then Bruce doesn’t need to find another headstone, he just has to get the dates- shit. Shit, you don’t need to hear that.”_

***

Tim’s in a chair in the middle of the dance floor, surrounded by a handful of men that look a lot tougher and a lot less sympathetic than the crew that escorted him from the warehouse on the docks. His domino’s still on, for a mercy, and he’s wearing a ridiculously oversized set of coveralls that have been rolled up about a dozen times at the wrists and ankles so that he can actually use his limbs. He looks about twelve.

More importantly- and Jason’s eyes zero in, ignoring the spreading violet shadows of bruises sweeping Tim’s face, the duct taped hands in his lap. More important than any-fuckin’-thing else, there’s a tiny orange flame at the corner of Tim’s mouth.

“Are you- are you actually kidding me right now?” Jason demands. The thugs, who’d straightened up and put on their best menacing looks when Madge had waved Jason in and shut the door behind him, taking off for her own plausible deniability, shift a little in anxiousness. Jason thumbs the safety back on the gun at his left side and puts his hands on his hips. “Are you seriously smoking again? After all the effort I put into that Powerpoint?”

“They gave it to me,” Tim mumbles around the cigarette, glaring defiantly and wrinkling up his domino. He’s clearly exhausted, but he’s going to stubborn his way right to the very utmost, pointless end, because he’s a _moronic little jackass_ who should have been blasted off the earth with the dinosaurs.

“Who gave it to you?” Jason whirls on the men behind Tim, now mostly huddling more than looming, though a few of them, concerningly, look like the type to use bullets to resolve confusion. “Tell me you didn’t give the kid a smoke just because he asked for one. What’s the matter with you?”

“He….” One starts, then seems to dry up. He coughs and starts again. “He said it was his ‘last request’ cigarette. S’only fair, ain’t it? You gotta give a dying man a smoke.”

“This is not a _James Bond_ movie, what the hell,” Jason tells him, exasperated. “I can’t believe you all. Red, spit that out. Right now.”

Tim glowers mutinously, but either gives in- _not fuckin’ likely-_ or decides to pick his battles, and spits the cigarette to the floor between them with a rude, wet _phbbt._

Jason glares. “You’re grounded,” he tells the kid flatly. Then he jabs an accusing finger at the thugs. “And you, you got no shame? Does he _look_ over eighteen to you?” Jason shakes his head in deep disappointment. “Man, don’t come lookin’ in Crime Alley for a job after this, is all I can say.”

“Split infinitive,” Tim mutters sourly. He kicks his heels irritably on the chair legs, and Jason’s amused to notice that they’ve put him in a bar-height seat, so that even if Tim stretches his bare toes he can’t touch the floor. That’s probably half the reason for the kid’s sour-pickle mood, right there. For all of Tim Drake’s many, many and myriad faults, Red Robin can usually keep his cool to single-digit kelvins even when the sky is raining mayhem and murder.

“Shrimp,” Jason says easily. “Bratty, pasty, mewling runt of a cutworm. And you can consider yourself cut off from any sweet stuff outta my kitchen for the next month. You know that cornmeal zucchini bread I was readin’ about? Forget it.”

Tim growls like a hamster.

Behind him, one or two of the men shift on their feet, uneasy.

***

_“You know what’s stupid? I actually felt sorry for her when she was talking at me while we were waiting for you. She’s way smarter than the guys she had to work for and she said people always look down on her just because she’s a woman who’s not beautiful and not young and works hard for a living. I felt bad for her. You’re gonna be so mad at me when you wake up. I was thinking, when she was talking, she was somebody you’d probably like. You like people like that, right? But you never would’ve fallen for it. Stupid Replacement Robin fails again.”_

_“Tim again. Alfred and I cleaned your room upstairs. So, it’s all ready, when you wake up. I even put a plant in there. Isn’t that what you do for sick people? I stole it from the conservatory. I think it’s a ficus but it’s pink and that was the closest I could get to red that wasn’t a flower and I don’t know if you’re going to be sensitive to pollen. …You know it’s morning, right? You can wake up any time, now.”_

***

These thugs aren’t secret fanboys of Red Robin. These thugs were told to show up and keep the kid contained just long enough for Red Hood to saunter in and turn him into swiss cheese. They're the kind of guys Jason warned the kid about, all those years ago, furious and afraid for this naive little idiot who didn't have the sense not to come down and take Jason's hand just because Jason told him to in his most grown-up voice.

Things aren’t going to plan. And they’ve _all_ been around long enough to know that things get dangerous when the plan gets derailed, right?

So maybe that means it’s Jason’s fault. Maybe Jason was a little too cocky, thinking he could take on- what, just eight or ten men on his own? Piece of cake. Walk in the park- not even Ivy’s park, either.

Of course, he didn’t really figure on Tim honestly not being able to get out of his wrist bindings- most kidnappers aren’t smart enough to use simple shit like duct tape- but he can roll with that. The kid dives out of the way, makes himself small and unobstructive in a corner while he gets his feet under him. Jason’s seen Red Robin deal out some righteously vicious kicks before, and he’s skilled enough to not need his arms for balance. It’s all good.

He didn’t really figure on a couple of the thugs being smart enough and quick enough on the uptake to turn their guns on _Tim_ , staying safely across the room and well out of Tim’s leg range. But Jason has a gun in each hand, and he’s aiming and firing far faster than Madge’s men can. Besides, Tim can duck and weave with the best of them.

So it shouldn’t matter that they aim at Tim. It _shouldn’t._

But Jason sees the angle of a barrel, and follows it, and, for the briefest moment, he freezes.

***

_“Jason, it’s Tim. If you don’t wake up soon, I’m going to scribble in all your books and eat all your baking chocolate and I’ll fling dandelion seeds all over your roof. Okay? Okay.”_

_“I didn’t mean it. I wouldn’t do that. But…Roy and Kori can’t be a trio without you, right? And…Dick would be pathetic without you. And I don’t think Bruce and Alfred could lose you a second time. They can’t, okay?_

_“Alfred says your blood pressure is going down. He’s giving you more norepinephrine and dobutamine. I’m rolling down the stairs to make more platelets faster. I watered your ficus._

_“Jason, please.”_

***

Jason has body armor.

Tim doesn’t.

It’s still a monumentally stupid idea, and, even as he does it, Jason wonders, faintly, if Tim’s insanity is catching.

***

_“Jason!! It’s been two whole days!! Why are you still asleep? Alfred told Bruce your stats are still dropping! I heard him when I was hiding in the kitchen! He’s going to put you on a ventilator and cardiac support! It was just a few bullets! You get shot at all the time! This is stupid, Jason. If you don’t wake up then I’m never going to forgive you. Never, never, never, never, never!”_

***

Jason fires with both hands and takes out the last of the gunmen as he falls. _Now,_ he thinks, and he’d tell Tim if he could, because he can see Tim’s face hovering over his, white and frantic and shouting at Jason the way he does when his espresso machine shows a warning light. _Now,_ that’s _the way you pull a James Bond._

***

_“The voice mailbox you are trying to reach is full. You cannot leave a voicemail at this time.”_

***

Jason wakes up and assumes he got chewed up and spat back out by Killer Croc, probably onto one of those stupid cobblestone roads left on a few random blocks of old-town Gotham to look ‘quaint’ for historically-minded tourists.

They’re not quaint; they’re just hard on his bike. And Gotham doesn’t get tourists unless they’re lost, unlucky, or lunatics.

But at least the cobbles would explain the fact that his entire body feels like one big bruise.

Half a minute later, he realizes he’s in the Cave, in the surgical suite, and alarms are going off behind his head.

Before he can really start to panic, Alfred shimmers in to the foot of the bed.

“Master Jason,” he says, and there’s very little attempt to hide the warmth and relief in his voice. “Please remain still. You’ve been rather badly injured, I’m afraid, but we’ll soon have you on the mend.”

“I can’t move my arms,” Jason rasps. 

Alfred, bless him, produces an oral swab from nowhere and briskly wets Jason’s mouth. “You have restraints on your wrists, which I shall remove in a moment. We were concerned that you might injure yourself if you awoke in an agitated state.”

“I can’t move my legs.”

“Master Timothy is currently providing restraint to your lower half, and has been doing so admirably for the last several days,” Alfred says calmly, and moves away to the monitors behind the head of the bed.

Jason peers down. Lifting his head even the inch or two that it takes to see over his own chest is exhausting, but it’s enough to see Tim’s dark head resting on his shins, arms flung out over Jason’s legs.

He’s sound asleep.

 _S’a good idea,_ Jason thinks muzzily, and drifts back off.

***

“ _Unfortunately, the woman you met seems to have gone to ground. She’s smart enough to have avoided standing out before now, so I assume she’ll be smart enough to wait on any attempts at revenge. But I’m certain that she_ will _attempt revenge against you and Red Robin.”_

Jason rolls his eyes. “Gee, all that sounds super familiar. I wonder why? Oh, I know! Because it’s in the report that _I_ wrote and gave to _you_. Huh. How ‘bout that?”

Bruce grinds his teeth very quietly. Then he says, frank in a way that Jason’s still not used to, for all that it’s been a bizarre sort of norm throughout his recovery at the Manor, “ _I just want you safe. And the best way to do that is to be fully communicative with shared information.”_

“No,” Jason argues. He pauses on the landing of the stairs to his apartment to catch his breath before continuing up, because he can’t stand the idea of huffing and puffing on the phone with Bruce. The overbearing control-freak will be rolling up in the Batmobile before Jason reaches the third floor, snatching him back to the Manor like the most demented kind of knight in shing armor. “The best way to keep us all safe is to keep Tim’s world domination ambitions under wraps. Along with whatever the hell he thinks of next to fill in his spare time, ‘cause I can only assume that’s gonna be worse.”

“ _Hmm.”_

“Do you even know where he is right now?”

“ _…Hmm.”_

“Bruce!” Jason cries, exasperated. “What the fuck. How have you not learned the only actual important lesson, here? I get that you’re tryin’ to be a real dad and everythin’ right now. That’s great. Go you. But the only thing that really matters to a peaceful life for any of us is _keepin’ Timmy’s mind where you want it to be._ Do you even know that you own a biogenetics lab in Dartmoor because Tim wants a luminescent rabbit?”

Jason’s door flings itself open in front of him and Tim stands framed, arms crossed over his scrawny chest, scowling fiercely. That ridiculous potted ficus is on the floor just inside the doorway, which explains the curious little dirt trail Jason’s been following from the front entrance of the building where Alfred reluctantly dropped him off. “It’s not _just_ about the rabbit,” Tim protests hotly. “They do pharmaceutical research, too!”

Jason gives him a bland stare, and sighs. “I found your kid,” he tells Bruce.

“ _…I’ll look into the Dartmoor lab.”_

“You do that. I’ll feed the vermin, I guess.”

“ _Don’t call your brother vermin. And, Jason_ … _if there are leftovers-“_

Jason hangs up. He slides his phone into a back pocket and stuffs his hands into the front ones, relaxing into his own space, shoulders dropping as the scents of his own home drift out around his beanpole little brother. He raises an eyebrow.

“It’s all my money in the rabbit lab, anyway,” Tim mutters, scuffing a toe of his Galaga-patterned socks on the floor. “And it’s PETA-approved.”

“Oreos are PETA-approved,” Jason points out. “That doesn’t mean they’re not chemical-laden abominations of pretense to the cookie name.”

“I like Oreos,” Tim grumbles. “You probably like Oreos, too. You just have to say you don’t because it’s part of your ‘homegrown-self-sufficiency’ hipster mystique.”

Jason takes a deep breath through his nose, counting slowly to five, and exhales through his mouth on a count of seven. Tim eyes him warily. He recognizes Bruce’s calming breath techniques when he sees them. But. Seriously.

Jason is not going to be patronized on hipster tendencies when their older brother wears sequined sweatshirts and cut-off shorts.

“You just don’t know real cookies when you see ‘em,” he says finally, and shoves past Tim into the apartment. “Pesochnoe pirozhenoe. Oat cakes. Kourabiedes with honey and orange water. Let’s go, short stack. Alfred says I’m on sternum precautions for another two weeks, so you’re gonna have to do the mixing.”

Tim trails after him and kicks the door shut, scuttling forward to tuck himself under Jason's arm the way he's been doing for weeks on the pretense that Jason might need the support walking. Jason, by now resigned to the little limpet on his left side, wraps his hand automatically around the bony ball of Tim's shoulder.

“Hey, Jason? I was watching this show about Oak Island….”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, you can see where that’s going. Tim the Treasure Hunter!
> 
> Jason: You want to go be Indiana Jones in the jungle with the cannibals and the death trap temples and the quicksand?  
> Tim: Yeah! See, come look at my string maps on all the walls of your house!  
> Jason: …Actually that’s safer than pretty much everything else you do, just don’t pick up any pets. And bring me some chocolate back.
> 
> THANK YOU to every one of you who stuck with me through this main story, and those of you who jumped over from the first little one that kicked it off. It’s been erratic and a long time coming to you, but your kind words have warmed my heart and kept me going. Writing this turned into my much-needed happy space because of you guys. Love and hugs and flinging of wildflowers.


End file.
